Co-located on Pittsburgh’s South Side with the GBA, the hub will serve as a center of education and outreach, connecting innovative buildings, communities, and projects to ILFI’s global network. It will be one of four such centers in the United States.

ILFI is known worldwide for administering the Living Building Challenge (LBC), a rigorous green building certification program that requires buildings to comply with 20 imperatives in seven building performance categories including place, energy, water, health and happiness, materials, equity, and beauty.

The Center for Sustainable Landscapes at Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh is one of the few buildings in the world to achieve the highest LBC certification. Contributing to its achievement are high-performance Solarban® 60, Sungate® 400 and Starphire Ultra-Clear™ glasses by Vitro Glass.

Richard A. Beuke, vice president, Vitro Architectural Glass, said Vitro Glass is honored to be a founding sponsor of Pittsburgh’s Living Product Hub. “First as PPG Glass and now as Vitro Glass, our company has been part of the city’s fabric since 1883. Our products are integral to the performance of Pittsburgh’s most globally recognized green buildings, including the Center for Sustainable Landscapes, David L. Lawrence Convention Center and The Tower at PNC Plaza, considered the world’s greenest office tower. We look forward to supporting the ILFI and GBA as they promote Pittsburgh’s legacy as a center for green building innovation.”

James Connelly, director of the Living Product Challenge for ILFI, said Vitro Glass is the perfect fit as a founding sponsor for Pittsburgh’s Living Product Hub. “Vitro Glass products have been used on three buildings around the world that are certified at the LBC’s highest level, an achievement that speaks not just to the company’s commitment to making sustainable glass products, but to the high level of trust architects and practitioners have in their performance.”

The Living Product Hub in Pittsburgh will host an opening reception on April 18 at Phipps Conservatory. The event starts at 5 p.m. Registration is open to the public.

The Living Product Challenge re-imagines the design and construction of products to function as elegantly and efficiently as anything found in the natural world. The creation of this program kicked off a groundbreaking new event that brought together leading minds in the product industry to inspire a revolution in the way materials are designed, manufactured and delivered: the Living Product Expo.

Vitro Architectural Glass, part of Vitro, S.A.B. de C.V. (BMV:VITROA), is a new organization created from Vitro’s acquisition of PPG’s flat glass business unit. Now the largest company of its kind in the Americas, Vitro Architectural Glass manufactures industry-leading brands such as Solarban®, Sungate® and Starphire Ultra-Clear™ glasses at U.S. plants in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; Fresno, California; Salem, Oregon; and Wichita Falls, Texas. The company also operates one of the world’s largest glass research and development facilities in Pittsburgh and four residential glass fabrication plants in Canada. For more information, please visit vitroglazings.com.